Editor’s Note: Wow – a lot has changed since March of 2012! It’s always so much fun to look back on older posts like this one and to realize how far we’ve come in a relatively short period of time! We just wanted to take a few minutes to give you a quick how-to in today’s world, and we also wanted to share a couple of newer posts that we’ve written on emojis that you might be interested in ??

Emojis now come standard on our smart phone keyboards, and using them has almost become second nature for a lot of us. Using them on our computers can still be a little tricky though.

Using Emojis on a Mac

Tip: If you’re planning on using a few different emoji, you can click and drag the palette to keep it up on screen.

Using Emojis on a PC

If you’re on a PC, there’s a few extra steps you’ll want to take. First, you’ll want to install the Segoe UI symbol font and then you’ll want to visit this website where you’ll be able to copy/paste emojis as needed. We got these steps from howtogeek.com – they’ve got more details there if you need them ?✂??

Emojis Today

Admittedly, there’s quite a bit in this post that isn’t quite as relevant today as it was then. Since this post was written, we’ve put together a couple more on the topic of emojis that you might want to check out:

Of course, if you’re mainly into the fun side, symbols can also let you write ǝpısdn uʍop or even black out those ██████ words (now that @SamuelLJackson has joined Twitter). But there’s a lot more you can do with symbols than just start a pie fight:
—=======[}

The first step, however, is getting symbols into your tweets! There are three ways to add symbols to your tweets:

Type them from your computer keyboard’s number pad.

Copy from somewhere and paste them in.

Use a tool that adds symbols for you.

Let’s start with the coolest way: An on-screen “click and tweet” typewriter for composing symbol tweets:

1. Where To Get Emoji & Symbols For Your Tweets

Click And Tweet Apps

There are several on-screen symbol “typewriters” you can use to compose and send tweets. Here’s one I made myself (click it to try it):

On this interface, hover over any symbol and it will be highlighted with a white background if it works on most interfaces. I added that feature to remind me not to use special symbols that many people won’t be able to see (read the next section for why not everyone sees all symbols).

After seeing my simple idea, developer Iván Rodríguez (@Ivan_RG) created the ultimate Twitter symbol interface, Twitter Symbols (also available in Spanish). Like my interface, there is a box to type in, but underneath his, he created this beautiful and extensive set of symbols (below) Just click, and they are added to your tweet! Click to try it:

Most advanced of all, though not as convenient as Twitter Symbols, is TwingDings. Here you get various “alphabets” of ACSII art that your text can be converted into, as well as a large collection of symbols and common art combinations.

(Update: It seems that TwingDings is no more. It was fun while it lasted :))

Copy/Paste Tools

There’s also a great guide to using text symbols, and a giant list of symbols to browse though.

Type Your Own Symbols

This is very convenient for symbols you find yourself needing frequently. I have several memorized.

To do this, you’ll need to use your computer’s number pad—which means you’ll have to have the NumLock set to “On,” or use the special function key on some laptops which lets you use part of the keyboard as a number pad.

Just typing the number from the top row of your keyboard won’t work. You’ll need to hold down the “Alt” key (option key on Mac) while you type, for this to work. Here’s a video introduction:

Here are some common symbols you may want to memorize how to type (you don’t type the “+” key):

— Alt+0151 or – Alt+0150

• Alt+7 or · Alt+0183

♥ Alt+3 or ☺ Alt+1

♫ Alt+14 or ♪ Alt+13

► Alt+16 or ◄ Alt+17

… Alt+0133 (didn’t know those three dots—the ellipses—could be a single character, did you?)

2. Why Emoji & Symbols Sometimes Don’t Work

Many mobile devices show very few symbols, which is a good reason not to overdo when adding them to your tweets. All they will show is a little box character “□” where the symbol is supposed to be.

What you need to realize is that symbols in tweets are not really images in the sense of being pictures or photos. They are actually just part of the same text character set that gives us numbers, letters, punctuation and so forth.

For that reason, many symbols do not exist as text characters that you can add to tweets, such as company logos and so forth.

3. How To Make Tweets Shorter AND Easier To Read

Here is an example of two tweets, where the one with symbols is 7 characters shorter, and just as easy—if not easier—to read:

My wife has hit a snag with trying to use the Alt-key to enter these characters. She uses Alt-0133 often, and whenever she uses it, it pops up a Buffer entry window, and interrupts the typing. I seem to recall something about the Alt key being used to change Buffer users, but can’t find it. Could this be the cause?

Gypse girl

there’s a symbol icon that kinda looks like a iron, or a coffee steamer.. not sure what it means… can you help.

Since it’s customized no one but you will see it because no one else has it

FourFollow

It can be even simpler to add special characters to your tweets. The site FourFollow.com has a special character editor for posting your tweets with lots of symbols. It lets you add special characters to your tweets with a single click. Therefore you can now also send special characters from your mobile phone including Androids and IPhones.

Hi there!
I really love using buffer, but for some reason whenever I add a tweet containing an emoji to the queue, the emoji won’t show once the tweet is published. However, if I schedule the tweet or publish it immediately, it does work. Does anyone know how to fix this or is anyone experiencing similar problems?

Mary Jantsch

Hey there Isabel, oh man, so sorry about the inconsistency here! Would you be up for shooting an email to hello@bufferapp.com pointing us to one of these tweets? I’d love to poke around a bit deeper and make sure we have Buffer working perfectly for you. 🙂 Let me know if you have any questions at all.

This is a guest post by Matt Hamilton, great blogger and Social Media enthusiast at Near Coast Media. More about him at the bottom of the post. It’s nothing new any more and I’m sure you have heard. At over 15 million users, Foursquare has recently grown up from nice gimmick to powerful business tool. […]